


Personal Notes (31) When the right thing to do is still wrong.

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [31]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Ownership, Science, consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1813894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos and Cecil discuss science and philosophy over lunch. Oh, there's an auction going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Notes (31) When the right thing to do is still wrong.

We had an unusually distinguished visitor to the lab today. Night Vale's wealthiest resident wanted us to design a machine that would reliably and accurately throw a hat into a designated target area whilst simultaneously releasing a diffuse cloud of syn-propanethial-S-oxide. I sent Aleck to buy as many onions as he could carry and begin synthesis of the necessary chemical, and asked him also to get some extra packets of paper towels. The mechanical side of the throwing machine I delegated to Estrella, and Gio worked on the gas cloud delivery system. Half a day's design and build had it working like a dream and we all wept tears of joy to see it removed from the vicinity of our work area by Mr Vansten's assistant. I needed Ell, I had to use her computer to print up an invoice. She knows exactly how much to add to private consultancy invoices to suggest we provide a high-quality, exclusive service without overcharging so much that clients look elsewhere in future. 

I felt uncomfortable dealing with Mr Vansten. He has proposed financing a school to be run with a business model. Children will be trained in menial tasks and will work to purchase the "right" to a better education while turning a profit for the board of directors. The principal would be called the managing director, teachers would be project managers and students would be called interns. This goes against everything I believe about education. Schools should be free to attend, well resourced and open to everyone.

But Ell is still absent. I logged on to her machine on the third guess at her password, it helps that she set it up to give her a hint if she got it wrong. I tried "Psycho" first then the phrase "hint: lovesick idiot" appeared under the login box. I sighed and guessed again: "Carlos" didn't work, but fortunately "FuckingCarlos" let me in rather than locking the machine down. I searched through previous invoices to see if there was anything I could use as a template. I chose an account that had required a similar level of scientist-hours and added on the cost of raw materials. 

As I scrolled back through the lab accounts, I noticed a pattern of unusual activity. I printed out the accounts for the last six months and sat with a pack of coloured highlighters. Green for anything I knew about, blue for anything I thought might be legit but that I didn't know about, pink for anything suspicious and yellow for anything else directly mentioning StrexCorp. I studied the totals carefully, counted them up, double and triple checked. We were turning a healthy profit, which is very unusual for a research lab like ours, and made me worry about the "natural wastage" comment in Ell's recent email. We could afford a full team. The pink ones included several identical payments for "psychological correctional services" and for every pink debit there was an identical yellow credit a few days later. I needed time to mull over the possibilities and probabilities so I stuffed the colour-coded accounts in my bag so that I could puzzle over them later.

Cecil and I had arranged to meet for lunch next door at Rico's. My phone buzzed with a text to say he was setting off so I slipped out of the lab, bagged our usual booth and ordered. He arrived as the wheat-free pizza was delivered to our table.

"Ooh mushroom and basil, neat!" He looked delighted. I always ordered it for him. "I hope they used the chanterelles this time. Those mushrooms Rico found by the woods last year had a really strange effect. One of the interns ate half a pizza and we had to take him home because he thought the furniture was following him and then he started shouting about mountaineering and trying to climb on the table. I was okay, but half a slice gave me some interesting and vivid dreams." He looked up, leaned forward and raised one eyebrow. "They might have been about you." I may have blushed as Cecil's foot traced up and down the side of my shin. As we ate, I explained what psilocybin is and how it affects the nervous system as it is metabolised into psilocin which interferes with neurotransmitter receptors within the brain, resulting in hallucination and a distorted sense of the passage of time. I added that I was surprised that any Night Vale residents would notice the effects.

Cecil was interested in science today. He asked me about neurotransmitters and consciousness. He wanted to know if I though it was possible for self-awareness to remain after someone died. I said that if consciousness was a byproduct of our brain activity, signals transmitting across synapses carried by a range of chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, then once brain activity ceased consciousness would be lost. 

"So what if your brain received no input? No stimulation?" he asked, head tilting just a little to the side.  
"Not possible as long as someone is alive," I replied, shaking my head. "There is always input of some kind."  
"Not if your five senses are somehow removed, say you were in a dark, soundproof box with no light so that's sight and hearing gone, no taste or smell if the air supply is pure, somehow floating in something at skin temperature to mask touch. What input signals could there be?"  
"Plenty. You have way more than five senses. Sense of direction...," I paused, wondering if he was about to mention just how many times I had got lost in town. "Okay bad example. Just monitoring your body conditions provides your brain with a constant stream of information such as your internal temperature, the concentrations of carbon dioxide, water and glucose in your blood, the position of your arms and legs, your sense of balance, whether or not you are hungry or tired or aroused, how full your bladder is..."  
"Okay!" he butted in, "I get the idea. So, consciousness should survive as long as the brain receives and processes information."  
"I think so although I've no clear idea how 'unconsciousness' fits with this model. Many would disagree. I suppose that's what they mean by spirit or soul"  
He looked at me, jaw slightly open. "Do you think having a soul is a result of... of biology?"  
I hadn't really thought about it that way before, at least not sober and in the middle of the day. "I suppose I do. Huh. I wonder what it would be like if I'm wrong, if I die and my soul, or whatever, continues to exist with no sensory input because there is no external hardware to feed it with data?"  
He swallowed the last bite of pizza. "That would be a special kind of Hell."

I paid for lunch because Rico's was still an independent business and the new regime over at the station had paid the staff with their own made-up currency, redeemable only in their own businesses. Cecil was furious about this change because he felt that he couldn't pay his share any more. I reassured him that it didn't matter to me who paid for what, but had our situation been reversed I would have felt the same way. I told him that since StrexCorp owned all of the houses on the opposite side of the street and seemed to be in the business of expansion, it wouldn't be long before he could start contributing to the rent again. Although they own my lab, we are still paid in hard currency through an external payroll agent.

Lunch was over and we both had to return to work. A quick kiss goodbye beside his car and Cecil drove away. I returned to my workbench to find a leaflet carefully rolled up and inserted into a gas tap. Beside it sat a beaker that contained a liquid which changed colour whenever I looked at it. As soon as I formed the thought "red" it became green and the more I concentrated on it the faster the colour changes happened. I asked Estrella to confirm my observations, which she did, in case the fungi had not been chanterelles after all. She set up a video camera to record the behaviour of the potentially sentient solution when it was, or was not, being directly observed, and when she stood with her back to it and just thought hard about different colours. She reported later that after a particularly vivid visualisation of a double rainbow the liquid had turned the colour of two day old coffee and stopped responding.

The leaflet was a campaign flyer from the Faceless old woman who secretly lives in our lab. It was rather decorative and simply informative. That ignorant and arrogant dragon has taken to giving speeches five at a time, all contradictory. How could we possibly elect a mayor who can't even agree with himself? 

It was my late shift at the lab tonight. I planned to stay until Cecil picked me up after his show. I looked forward to hearing his voice on the radio. The lab radio still switched on automatically when his show started. Leah, the newest postgrad, searched the lab for the off switch the first time it happened but the others told her not to bother. They had already turned the lab upside down and failed to find even a radio. I remembered the webcam incident and switched on my computer, clicked the link Gio left on my desktop and saw Cecil sitting with his headphones on, microphone by his face, forearms on the desk and script in his hands. I could watch him work. I texted him to see if this was really a live feed. He looked at his phone, looked up at the camera and winked at me as he told the town that everything was fine. I flouted lab rules, got coffee and settled on my lab stool to watch and listen.

He talked about the Sheriff's Secret Police annual auction and read out part of the catalogue. If I hadn't already known about it, I would have suspected he was sending another coded message to Tamika. I had planned to go to the auction if I had time and see if I could bid on the 1964 X-Men comic as an apology present for Cecil. We watched one of the movies last week and Cecil got really annoyed when I corrected the bad movie science a few times. Your mutation is that you can negate gravity? Great! Watch as space and time crumble. Apparently I do that a lot and apparently it is really annoying. We watched an old creature-feature last night and I tried to explain that great white sharks really only eat fish and seals, Jaws was probably playing with the humans and didn't mean to kill them. 

Lot thirty-seven. Cecil Palmer. In any other town on Earth I would have laughed at that. Not here, not now. I picked up my little portable radio, put my earbuds in, shut down the lab and headed for the auction. 

It was chaos. Bidders were fighting physically over who had bought the items they wanted. There was confusion over a lot that the highest bidder expected to contain Elvis vinyl records but was actually a set of forty-five-calibre fifteen inch naval guns nicknamed "The Elvis Collection" by the sailors who last fired them. That could have ended badly. Fortunately there was a limited supply of ammunition and expertise in cleaning naval cannon. 

My earbuds told me that Cecil was coming to the auction. I would see him early! The thought made me smile. I took out my earbuds and looked around for him. I could see a slight commotion at the entrance. Cecil was there, but late for his own auction and arguing with the bouncer. I saw him enter the auction room. I also saw him freeze up, just stand there staring at air molecules as lot thirty-seven was called. I did what I thought was the least-worst thing to do. I bid on Cecil. I hated it, the idea that a person could be sold and bought without even their knowledge, let alone consent. Even with consent it was a horrible thing. But what if someone else had bid? What if, for example, that oily bastard Vansten tried to buy him? or the fucking dragon's gold head? Calm. Be calm, you have him, I told myself. I was in danger of working myself up into irrational anger over an event that didn't even happen. Would Cecil react badly to me admitting how protective and jealous I feel about him? I did not want to find out. I thought it best not to tell him what I had done. I sorted out the paperwork for my unethical purchase and returned to the lab.

Cecil was so utterly despondent when he picked me up that I almost told him. But I couldn't, I could not say, "I bought you, you're mine." But I could say, "I love you, I'm yours."

**Author's Note:**

> spoiler alert: apparently canon is that Carlos did not get Lot 37. Dammit!


End file.
